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Hot-rod hero Gene Winfield, 91, recovering from broken hip

Accident occurred in Finland, where hot-rodders are really heroes

October 11, 2018

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Original hot-rod hero Gene “Windy” Winfield recently suffered a fall while on a tour in Finland and broke his hip. Reports say he got a “stainless steel plate and screws” and has been moved out of critical care and into a recovery unit at a Finnish hospital.

So you could say the customizer is being customized.

There is a gofundme campaign aimed at getting him a special medical flight home. The fund was set up by Winfield’s Custom Shop manager Johnny B Good (that's his hot rod name). The fund is seeking $150,000 to arrange a special medical transport flight from Finland back to Windy’s shop in Mojave, California. The fund is over a third of the way to that goal.

Now, I’m a car writer not a doctor, but in my amateur doctor opinion, The Great Winfield ought to just let the Finnish doctors heal him up completely before trying to get on a plane. But what do I know?

I do know that Winfield is truly one of the greats in the field of customizing. After a stint in the Navy during World War II (thank you, Greatest Generation!), Winfield returned to his hometown of Modesto, Calif., and opened Windy’s Custom Shop. He started building hot rods and customs, and he raced his own ’27 T Roadster on the dry lakes. He went 124.5 mph at El Mirage on his first weekend running there. That was followed by 135 mph at Bonneville in another ’27 T called The Thing.

By the 1950s, he had developed the famous “Winfield Fade” paint technique that blended two candy colors. In 1962, Winfield was hired by AMT to design and build models and full-scale promotional vehicles. Through AMT, he met a few people in Hollywood, and that’s when things really started going. His custom Reactor car appeared in "Mission: Impossible," "Bewitched" and "Star Trek." It was even driven by Catwoman Eartha Kitt in two episodes of "Batman." He did Don Adams' Sunbeam Tiger in "Get Smart," and his Piranha car was on "The Man From U.N.C.L.E." He even did the shuttle craft from the original "Star Trek" TV series. He worked with futurist Syd Mead to create 25 cars that appeared in the original "Blade Runner," and his 6000 SUX was in "RoboCop."

He may be best known for chopping Mercurys. In his 70+ years of customizing Winfield has chopped the tops off more than 400 Mercury coupes, and all 400 of them are the better for it.

"He knew how to do it just by looking at them," said Autoweek's Keith Crain, a longtime friend of Winfield's. "He didn't need a template."

Winfield had a shop in North Hollywood during the 1960s but moved to the high desert town of Mojave after that, where his shop is still in business, albeit minus its founder for the time being. The 11th annual Winfield Watson Gathering, a kustum kar kulture extravaganza scheduled for this Saturday, Oct. 13, will still go on at 8201 Sierra Hwy., Mojave, Calif. Johnny B Good said they will set up a live feed so that fans can see Windy and Windy can see the whole show. And the show is free, so get up there and wave into the camera for Windy, will ya?